Sophomores

by Sean Desmond

  The mirthless Father Argerlich looked like he was ready to lie down in traffic on the Dallas North Tollway. “Those for Mr. Boudreaux . . .”

  Trying not to make a show of it, Boudreaux raised his own hand, which brought hisses from the other sophomores. His delegation of freshman minions voted with him. Argerlich started his count while Tsimboukis grabbed two froshes by their necks and death-pinched them into lowering their hands. This miraculously went unseen by Argerlich.

  “Seven for Mr. Boudreaux. Those for Mr. Malone?”

  The sophomores, minus Teddy Boudreaux, raised their hands. But it was not enough. Tsimboukis turned back to the freshmen he was bullying. Some illegal, disturbing Greco-Roman hold on their genitals was threatened, and their hands went up.

  “Five, six, seven for Mr. Malone.”

  “Dan, raise your hand!” Stick yelled.

  Stunned by this turn of events, Dan slowly raised his hand.

  “Eight votes for Mr. Malone. Fine.” Teddy Boudreaux tried to complain about freshman voter suppression, but Stick talked over him.

  “That’s it, eight to seven for Malone. Right, Father?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose it is the wisdom of this conclave that Mr. Malone is the editor in chief. Since it’s such a close vote, I think it’s only fair that Ted Boudreaux be appointed managing editor.”

  Dan nodded to Father Argerlich and then looked over at Boudreaux, whose face was scalded, mortified. Stick, Rick, and Tsimboukis were all grinning like jack-o’-lanterns and plotting their next move. They went on to nominate the rest of the masthead, and the sophomores ran the ticket like Tammany bosses. Boudreaux stomped out before they could brainstorm article ideas for the next issue. At the end of the period, Argerlich dropped the censored issue of The Roundup on Dan’s desk.

  “Congratulations, Mr. Malone—I think the term ‘poisoned chalice’ might be appropriate at this moment.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Just a joke, Mr. Editor—it’s up to you now.”

  * * *

  After the dismissal bell, Dan made his way down the long hall that held the counseling wing. In addition to being an honors English teacher, Oglesby was the senior counselor in charge of college placement. Dan poked his head around the corner into Oglesby’s office; he was returning calls to nervous parents of seniors. He waved in Dan, who plunked down in a low-slung creamsicle-colored lounge chair. By the doorway was an oversized umbrella stand that housed all of Oglesby’s teaching sticks, most of them hewn in shop and gifted by acolytes from sophomore classes past. Above the stand was a framed postcard that read: “The beatings will continue until morale improves.” Oglesby sat behind a credenza desk in a padded pleather office chair that creaked and pinged like a shot transmission when he leaned back. Above his desk were diplomas for a bachelor’s in English from UT and a master’s in counseling from the University of Dallas. And one more framed dictum—two words in large gothic type: cura personalis.

  Oglesby hung up the phone and, without making eye contact with Dan, put out his hand. Dan reached into his bag and pulled out the yellow spiral notebook that was his journal.

  “Did you complete the extra assignment, Mr. Malone?”

  “I did.”

  Oglesby flipped to the last entry. “This is it . . . ‘The Raft of Life’?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Oglesby started to read aloud: “‘The Raft of Life . . . ’”

  Humanity is on its raft. The raft is on an endless ocean. From his present dissatisfaction man reasons that there was a catastrophic wreck in the past, before which he was happy in some Edenic existence. Man also believes that somewhere ahead lies a promised shore, a land of peace. But at present man is miserably in passage.

  “Hmm . . .” Oglesby handed the journal back to Dan, shaking his head with apparent disappointment. “I was afraid of this.”

  Dan seized up. “Sir, I promise you I did all the assignments before class today.”

  “That’s not the problem, Mr. Malone.” Oglesby tried to rub the tiredness out of his face with both hands. He threw himself back in the creaky chair. “The problem is that you have the talent to be the best writer in the class.”

  “Oh.”

  “This piece is good. When did you write this?”

  “Free period . . . and in Father Payne’s theology.”

  Oglesby reached forward and drummed on the coffee mug on his desk. “Mr. Malone, why are you here?”

  “At Jesuit?”

  “Sure.”

  “To learn.”

  “Besides the obvious.” With a wide, deep gaze, Oglesby corralled Dan’s attention and bore down on him. “Think. Why are you here?”

  “Because the Earth cooled at a moderate distance from the sun, and of all the orders of mammals, primates evolved from tails and knuckle dragging to bipedal locomotion and opposable thumbs.”

  “That’s a better answer, but don’t miss my point, Mr. Malone—you have it.” Oglesby leaned forward and tapped his finger on Dan’s journal. “Your ability to think while you write. Your retention for story and detail. These are important skills. This essay—this is you. It’s smart, it’s a little dark, and it’s not sure where it’s going. So, Mr. Malone: why are you here?”

  No one had ever challenged him in this way. Without knowing what to say, he spoke.

  “I’m here to become a Norwegian rat.”

  “Good. Then come to my class prepared. Being a Norwegian rat is not just answering the questions you know the answers to. You have to gnaw out of your cage, Malone. You have to show me more writing like this. Are you ready to work?” Oglesby creaked back in his chair, casting just enough doubt on Dan to spur him.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to give you another assignment. This is not a punishment. Think of it as a training exercise.”

  Oglesby launched out of his chair toward his bookshelves. He pulled down what looked like a gray textbook.

  “Do you know who Bob Dylan is?”

  “Uh . . .”

  “That’s okay. That’s ideal, actually.” Oglesby then riffled through his army backpack and produced a tape. “A former student of mine—he goes to Plan II at Texas now—made this mix of his favorite Dylan songs. Take the tape and this book.”

  Dan looked down at the cover, squiggles of graffiti over a photostat of Dylan. LYRICS 1962–1985.

  “I want you to listen to the tape. Study the lyrics. Write about them. Tell me what you think. Mr. Malone, prove to me that you are ready for this. Prove to me you’re a candidate for Norwegian rat. Try to answer the question that everyone—Dylan, Joyce—the question they all ask: why are we here?” Oglesby turned to his desk and let out a dramatic sigh of resignation. “Now get lost. I have parents coming in who have phenomenological certainty that their precious offspring must attend Duke University despite his mediocre grades and SATs and a hokey essay about baseball and life throwing him curveballs.”

  Dan got up and walked to the door.

  “Oh, and, Mr. Malone—congratulations on becoming the editor of The Roundup. I’ve been dealing with upperclassman complaints about Father Argerlich all day. I’m glad you stepped up.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you.”

  Oglesby smiled and waved him off. “Now don’t screw it up.”

  Dan strode out of the counseling wing, down the main hall, and through the front doors with amdg engraved into their handles. He found himself walking past the driveway half-searching for his mother’s silver Zephyr in the pickup lane. The skies had cleared, and he noticed the golden traces of the sun stretching across the football fields and the small hillock that ran down to Inwood Road. He stood there holding in his hands his journal, the Dylan tape, and the songbook. Though no one seemed to notice him, Dan Malone felt a spark within. The trees that lined the school parking lot stirred and whispered in the late
-afternoon breeze, and Dan felt a sudden awareness, a shimmering sense of discovery, that his journal, the newspaper, music, writing, reading, it was all connected with some hidden purpose. I will become a Norwegian rat. I can do this.

  The hour when he would take part in the life of the world seemed to be drawing closer, and Dan wanted to think and write and listen to his heart and find out what it felt.

  [ OCTOBER 16 ]

  There was a plan to snake a man without collarbones down the well. As the silver Zephyr sputtered through rush-hour traffic, Anne Malone listened to KRLD about the rescue efforts for baby Jessica. It was a Friday morning, and Anne had dropped Dan off at school an hour early so she could report for jury duty. Refusing the mix-master madness of Texas highways, she niggled her way along Inwood and Preston Roads toward the downtown Dallas skyline. A man without collarbones? That seemed awfully desperate—a resignation to the fact that they couldn’t drill down in time. But how could that be? It’s in the middle of oil country. Anne turned off the radio in despair. Three days now. Somehow the child is still alive.

  Eventually she found her way through Dealey Plaza, past the Old Red Courthouse, past the spot where history veered, down through the Commerce Street underpass. After a half mile of highway no-man’s-land, Anne turned into a parking garage attached to the hulking brown backside of the Frank Crowley Courts Building.

  Parking ticket, elevator down, cheerless atrium, elevator up, gray terrazzo floor, beige hallways, and Anne arrived at the jury assembly room. She turned in her summons and took her seat on a long pew of blond wood. The jury pool was an accurate census sample of Dallas County—one half white retirees, civil servants, and housewives, the other half black, Mexican, Central American, and the working poor. A short video narrated by channel five’s Chip Moody gave a Disney history of the jury system, from casting stones in ancient Greece to the Puritans’ trials by drowning. A mention of the Magna Carta, sprinkle in the Bill of Rights, cut to trumpet flourish with mustangs running free across the plains of West Texas.

  Quickly a bailiff, a scrawny woman with gold-rimmed glasses and prematurely gray hair, read off a roster of names. Anne hadn’t even cracked her Frank O’Connor short stories when they called her to jury room D.

  She sat there with thirty other prospective jurors while a different bailiff, a muscular bowling ball of a sergeant, passed out a questionnaire. Name; date of birth; can you see, hear, and command English; ever done this before; tell us when and what happened; did you reach a verdict—the normal stuff—but then on the second-to-last page Anne was struck by this paragraph:

  Because this case has received extensive publicity many, if not all, of you will have heard and/or read something about this case from the media. It is vitally important that you truthfully answer the following questions . . .

  Anne turned to the last page.

  Do you know—or have you had any interaction with—Reverend Standing Raleigh or his wife, Margaret Raleigh?

  Holy moly. This is the Raleigh trial. Anne knew Peggy Raleigh taught at Ursuline and tried to remember if they had met in person. She couldn’t recall anything and answered: “Yes, I know of her and her husband, but have never interacted.”

  Do you know that Reverend Raleigh has been charged with the attempted murder of his wife, Margaret?

  Have you ever been a member of Reverend Raleigh’s congregation at First United Methodist?

  The following attorneys and court officers will be involved with the case, mark an X next to the name of anyone you have encountered in a legal proceeding . . .

  Anne turned in her questionnaire and stared with disbelief at the jerky red second hand of the government clock. It isn’t even ten in the morning, Anne realized, but things are moving with a purpose.

  After all the questionnaires were collected, the bailiff let the jury pool pass around sections of the Morning News. And there Anne found it—B5 in the Metro section—“Jury Selection to Begin in Raleigh Trial . . . the former pastor accused of strangling his thirty-eight-year-old wife in the garage of their Lake Highlands home, leaving her in a coma . . . Raleigh, arrested on July 14, has pleaded not guilty.”

  The muscle-bound bailiff returned, and everyone stood and shuffled through a short hallway to the courtroom. Anne and the rest of the jury pool were seated in the gallery before the court of Judge Gideon Barefoot Samuels. The judge presided before his bench, to the right the two prosecutors, to the left two defense attorneys and the Reverend Raleigh, looking away with hunted eyes.

  Judge Barefoot Sam gave the nod that everyone could be seated, and his clerk passed him the jury cards and a leather-backed selection grid with slips for twelve cards. The wizened judge had sandy blond hair and a punched-in pug face framed by look-over reading glasses. He smiled past the brim of a “Judges Rule!” coffee mug at the prospective jurors and began in a gentle Texas drawl:

  “All right. We’re ready to go. Good morning. The next case we’re selecting a jury for—let me make sure I don’t have any . . .” The judge looked down at his clerk’s notes on the cards. “This case will not be scheduled for the twenty-sixth, so that shouldn’t be a problem. This one will start on November second or the ninth, so we’re okay.

  “This is cause number six two oh dash seven one three six—I’ve had no request to shuffle so we’re going to proceed. Folks, please sit in the jury box in the order we call you. If you move around, you’ll confuse the attorneys and me, so please pay attention to the order in which you are called. This is cause number six two oh dash seven one three six, State of Texas versus Standing Raleigh. Reverend Raleigh is charged with the offense of attempted homicide. Mr. Whiteside, please stand up. Thank you. He is representing Reverend Raleigh . . .”

  Haynes Whiteside pressed down his pink silk tie and turned to the gallery. “Good morning, everyone. This is my associate, Mr. Graybill.”

  Judge Sam continued. “And, Mr. Blackburn, who is a representative of Dallas district attorney Mr. Wade. Mr. Blackburn is going to be lead prosecutor. Sitting over here with him is Mr. Blackburn’s compadre Miss Silverstone. And I guess she’s riding shotgun, right, on this one?”

  Douglas Blackburn stood with Miss Sutton Silverstone. They wore complementary gray suits. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “All right. Those are your main legal participants. Have any of the prospective jurors in this room met or at any time dealt with any of the attorneys in this case?”

  An older man lifted his raisined hand and in clipped English claimed to have done yard work for one of the attorneys.

  “Which one, amigo?” Judge Sam gestured back and forth.

  The man pointed at Mr. Whiteside.

  “I take his word for it, Your Honor.”

  Judge Sam had the clerk pull the card for Mr. Morales and sent him back to the jury pool. “Okay, anybody else cutting grass or sold Girl Scout cookies to Mr. Whiteside, myself, or any of the attorneys? Or Reverend Raleigh and his family? No? Going once, going twice. Mr. Greenfield will now call your names in order. Please take a seat in the jury box as directed by our bailiff, Sergeant Redman.”

  Five names in, the clerk read aloud “Anne Malone,” and she moved from the gallery to the end of the first row of the jury box. A dozen and six alternates were seated. Mr. Whiteside took the grid from Judge Samuels and brought it over to Mr. Graybill, who had pulled the relevant questionnaires. After a long minute of consultation, Mr. Whiteside turned to the jury box.

  “Mr. Garcia, it says here you work for the post office, is that right, sir?”

  “Ms. Klais, you read the Times Herald every day?”

  “Mr. Hovey. Is it Darnell Hovey? I got that right? You’ve had a prior incident with the Dallas PD?”

  Whiteside used four of his strikes on the first call. Two black men and two black women were sent out of the courtroom, and the jury was reseated. The clerk, Greenfield, passed the questionnaires to Graybill. Anne sat perpendi
cular to Raleigh in the courtroom, looking straight ahead at him. He was balding in the tonsure pattern of a Trappist. He seemed frail, with large, melancholy eyes, the fires out, his lips ever so slightly tremulous. Anne sensed that his lawyers told him to avoid eye contact during the empaneling. I can’t even imagine what this must be like, Anne thought, to sit in this same room, unable to even look at the people who will decide your fate.

  Whiteside passed the grid to Blackburn, who approached the jury box.

  “Good morning, I just have a few questions for all of you. Mr. Raleigh is on trial for attempted murder. The Texas penal code defines that as a second-degree felony with a punishment of up to twenty years. Does anyone here have a problem with that? Just raise your hand if you don’t think that’s an appropriate sentence.”

  No hands.

  “Thank you. In this case, it is my job, the state’s job, to prove to you that Mr. Raleigh had the intent to kill his wife, Margaret Raleigh. There is going to be medical evidence regarding Mrs. Raleigh that’s rather grisly in nature. Anyone here have a problem with that?”

  A woman behind Anne raised her hand and asked if there was anything related to rape or of a sexual nature.

  “No, ma’am. Mrs. Raleigh was strangled by her attacker.”

  Anne watched the reverend. Not a flinch.

  Mr. Blackburn went on to define reasonable doubt, intent to kill, some other basic notions of what he hoped the jury would understand. He then glanced down to the grid and picked at the cards.

  “So this is the voir dire. Anyone know what that means?”

  “To speak the truth.” Anne couldn’t help herself on legal trivia.

  “Thank you, Mrs. . . . Malone. What is your occupation?”

  Here we go, he’ll try to get rid of me. “I’m a teacher.”

  “Where are you currently employed?”

  “St. Rita’s Catholic School . . . part-time.” Anne was high on the sub list for all grades.